How do I permanently remove Recently Saved bookmarks from the Safari sidebar in MacOS Tahoe?

I figured it out. The "Recently Saved" section lists sites in your "Reading List". Go to View -> Show Reading List Sidebar. There you can delete items. When all have been deleted, the Recently Saved section is gone.

I didn't even know I had added items to a reading list. But, they're gone now and I'm happier.

The latest update seems to prevent any workarounds, other than editing the Bookmarks.plist directly.

This is somewhat dangerous, although this will make a backup you can restore. You need to open terminal and make sure it has Full Disk Access under System Settings > Privacy and Security > Full Disk Access

Close Safari and run each command

# backup bookmarks
cp -p ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist ~/Desktop/Bookmarks.plist.backup

# convert to xml
plutil -convert xml1 ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist -o ~/Desktop/Bookmarks.xml

# remove all dateAdded
sed -i '' '/<key>dateAdded<\/key>/{N;d;}' ~/Desktop/Bookmarks.xml

# convert back to binary
plutil -convert binary1 ~/Desktop/Bookmarks.xml -o ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist

Then restart Safari and all recently added should be gone. If there is an issue then

# restore backup
cp -p ~/Desktop/Bookmarks.plist.backup ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist

They're distracting, irritating, unnecessary and compromise privacy if you share your workspace, AND there isn't any way to get rid of them permanently. However, what you can do is click on 'Bookmarks Menu' which will give you just the simple list of folders without the 'Recently Saved' large coloured icons at the top. You can just leave it like that if you just want to access bookmarks on a regular basis and not keep switching to other items. Not perfect, but probably best you can do?

The preview bookmarks appearing as large image icons is an easy matter to solve however – just click on the 3 dots at the top right of the sidebar and tick "Compact" instead of "Large".

I figured out an easy workaround (until Apple fixes it):

1. Open Safari.
2. Click Edit Bookmarks in the top menu.
3. Click New Folder button in the top right corner of the window.
4. Create a folder called "My Bookmarks" which will appear in the left column of the Edit Bookmarks window.
5. Drag all of your existing bookmark folders into your new "My Bookmarks" folder (and sort as you like).
6. Go to the Bookmarks sidebar and click on your new "My Bookmarks" folder.

You can click the back "<" arrow at the top of the bookmarks sidebar to go back to seeing those two gigantic "Recently Saved" bookmark icons above three sections: "Favorites", "Tab Group Favorites" and your new "My Bookmarks" folder.

It works!

The only way to remove is to delete each of the bookmarks. What I did was to make a desktop folder and moved those recents bookmarks to that folder then deleted them from the side bar. I hope a future OS release will address this issue.

Go up to the "Saved Bookmarks" and right click and and then click delete each individual one, you may have to refresh your screen or close it out afterwords but the "saved bookmarks" will be gone when you re-open it. Hope this helps you out

That is not quite correct. The huge "recently saved" icons at the top of the bookmarks bars are both recently saved bookmarks & recently saved reading list items. If you recently save a bookmark it will also save here.

As far as I can see there is no way to remove this feature - yet.

The only way I figured to AVOID this irritation is to create bookmarks on your iPhone or iPad. Then when they sync to your Mac via the iCloud, you have your bookmarks saved where you want them in your bookmarks and any sub folders. Recently saved does NOT appear in the side bar on the Mac.

I hope that Apple listen to users, I mean if the user creates a bookmark they will be saved in to a location they specify. They do NOT need a massive Icon at the top of the Bookmark side bar to remind them they saved a bookmark. A very bad design feature IMHO!

The other alternative is of course (don't use the sidebar) and just use your bookmarks menu!

@carolfrommd - you can change that - click the three dots at the top of the bookmark bar & you can change from large to small. It's only the large setting that shows the name & description.

I moved all my recent bookmarks to a folder on my desktop then deleted those in the side bar. Good for now until I save another bookmark and the issue comes back.

I thought I found the answer - don't do what I just did. Even though "Recently Added Bookmarks" was greyed out, I started swiping right and deleting each recently added bookmark from the list. There were many - so I highlighted the remaining list and hit "delete". All gone - and deleted from my bookmarks, too. AGHHH!

(MAC OS Sequoia 15.7)

I have an even better solution: switch to DuckDuckGo. Safari is just a mess right now. I'm a long time user and Apple seems to think that change means better. It doesn't. The straw that broke the camels back for me, was opening up my bookmark folders to see that every site and now not only has a name or website address and a description. Did they design this for someone who is on the spectrum? Apple solution to this? Go in and edit every single one. Well Apple, I have 463 bookmarked sites and I'm not going to do that. I switched to a different browser and couldn't be happier.BTW... I was able to export my Safari bookmarks in the old style, just the names of the saved sites. Apple continues to disappoint me.

Solution: download DuckDuckGo. No reading list, no recently saved, no bookmarks that aren't really bookmarks but are rather synopses of web sites. Apple: you're losing me (and millions like me). Can only think this new Safari layout was created by those highly on the spectrum. The real bite and soooo unApple like?....no customization is possible. See ya bye Safari!

so not so much a fix, but when I open safari, I just click on favorites in the side bar and then it just shows me my stuff... the ugly saved thing goes away... just have to deal with it when I open new windows. Trying to get it to open new windows and open Favorites in the sidebar but haven't figured it out yet... maybe some clever editing of a plist, but I need to work on that when I have more time.

I agree! You can send feedback to Apple:

Feedback - macOS - Apple